1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a switching system, and in particular to a switching system to which a call center is connected where a reception service is performed in a telephone system.
A call center in cooperation with a telephone system and a customer""s data base for a mail order and a customer support plays an important role in CRM (Customer Relationship Management), and in particular what a convenient service can be offered by the call center to a telephone from a customer is important for a successful business.
2. Description of the Related Art
A call center is generally provided with a plurality of reception desks connected to a switching system with extension lines. There are some cases where operators positioned at each of the reception desks transfer a call with a customer who is a caller from an outside line to another outside line. This is for directly receiving a detailed explanation from an outsourcing company. Specifically, when the call center is outsourced by the outsourcing company such as for a sale of commodities or goods from different companies, and can not attend to a customer""s demand for a detailed explanation of the commodities, the outside line transfers to the outsourcing company which is the offer source (request source) of the commodities are performed.
A telephone transferring technology in such a case is described in e.g. the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No.4-259157.
Namely, an electronic switching system proposed therein is as follows: When a telephone xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d is a transfer source, and transfers a call to another telephone xe2x80x9cCxe2x80x9d during the call with a telephone xe2x80x9cBxe2x80x9d, and when the telephone xe2x80x9cCxe2x80x9d is busy, the telephone xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d detects the busy state and automatically returns to the call with the telephone xe2x80x9cBxe2x80x9d having the line held, after a fixed time elapses. On the other hand, when the telephone xe2x80x9cCxe2x80x9d of the transfer destination is not busy, the telephones xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cCxe2x80x9d are mutually connected to enable the call. When the telephone xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d does a hook flash operation, the telephones xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cBxe2x80x9d are mutually reconnected to assume a call state, so that the telephone xe2x80x9cCxe2x80x9d is disconnected.
In such a conventional technology, the telephone B which is calling the telephone xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d of the transfer source has to hold the line. If such a technology is applied to the relationship between the above-mentioned call center, customer, and outsourcing company, the call center is obliged to hold the line, so that during that time, the call center can not receive other customers"" calls.
On the other hand, if the call center does not hold the line, the call center disconnects the telephone after having transferred the call to the outsourcing company. Therefore, if the customer desires to obtain the explanation of another commodity from the call center after having received the detailed explanation from the outsourcing company, the customer is required to once disconnect the call with the outsourcing company, and to again make a telephone call to the call center.
Thus, from a customer""s standpoint, it is desired to determine a commodity to buy after having compared commodities. However, in order to obtain the information of another commodity, it is required to again make a telephone call, resulting in double operations. Also, as an outsourcing company, it has been disadvantageous that there is a possibility of losing customers without having them make a telephone call again.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a switching system which is easily reconnected to an original call path even if an original call state is disconnected when the call is transferred to another outside line or extension.
FIG. 1 schematically shows an arrangement of a switching system according to the present invention for achieving the above-mentioned object.
At first, a caller 1 (first outside line) who is a customer is connected to a switch 3 composing a switching system through a public network 2. The switch 3 is further connected to a call center 5 (extension/outside line) under the control of a controller 4. The call center 5 is provided with reception desks 51-5n where operators are respectively located, and manages a reception service of such a company as undertakes outsourcing sales of commodities from a plurality of companies.
If the caller 1 performs a calling operation (calls) in such an arrangement, the call is received at e.g. the reception desk 52 among the reception desks 51-5n in the call center 5 (call state (1)).
When the operator of the reception desk 52 can not satisfactorily answer the questions about the commodities from the caller 1, the transfer thereof to an outside transfer destination (second outside line) 6 which is a development source of the commodities is demanded through the switch 3 and the public network 2, thereby assuming a call state (2) between the caller 1 and the transfer destination 6.
In the call state (2), the controller 4 connected to the switch 3 can detect whether or not the outside transfer destination 6 has disconnected the call (end of call) based on a disconnection signal 7 sent from e.g. the public network 2.
When receiving the disconnection signal 7 from the public network 2 by the call disconnection of the outside transfer destination 6, the controller 4 switches over the call in order that the caller 1 is again connected to the reception desk 52, thereby returning to the above-mentioned call state (1).
Also, as for the reception desk to which the caller 1 is reconnected, the number of the reception desk 52 according to the first call state (1) is preliminarily stored, so that the caller 1 may return to that number. Otherwise, a reception desk (e.g. reception desk 51) may be predetermined to be selected, or any other reception desk may be set to be selected when the selected reception desk is busy at the time of the selection.
Thus, according to the above-mentioned present invention, the caller who is a customer is automatically reconnected to the operator of the reception desk in the switching system. Therefore, the operation of making a telephone call again in order to obtain the information of another commodity with which the outsourcing company deals can be omitted.
Also, in the above example, the caller 1 and the transfer destination 6 are connected with the outside line. Besides this arrangement, another arrangement where all of the caller 1, call center 5, and the transfer destination 6 are connected to the switch 3 with the extension may be adopted.
Namely, if the outside line or the extension are simply referred to as xe2x80x9clinexe2x80x9d, and the first to third lines are supposed to be connected to the switch 3; when the transfer demand from the second line (call center 5) to the third line (transfer destination) is received by the controller 4 in the call state (1) between the first line (caller 1) and the second line, the controller 4 may connect the first line to the third line, and when the call state (2) between the first line and the third line ends, the controller 4 may reconnect the first line to the second line.
When there are a plurality of second lines in this case, the controller may store the number of the second line at the time of the first call, and select either the stored second line or predetermined one of the second lines at the time of the reconnection.
Furthermore, when the selected second line is busy, another arbitrary line which is not busy of these second lines may be selected.